The present invention relates to an automated assembly system for a semiconductor device for automatizing manufacture thereof.
Semiconductor devices such as ICs are manufactured by use of:
(a) a die bonder for mounting an IC die on a lead frame,
(b) a wire bonder connecting the die and the lead frame via a wire,
(c) a molding device for sealing the wire bonded die with resin,
(d) a heating and hardening furnace for heating and hardening the molded resin,
(e) a cutter for cutting and bending a lead part projecting from the molded part, and
(f) a soldering means for coating the lead part with solder. Each of these devices incorporates a magazine filled with lead frames from an inlet thereof, automatically takes out the lead frames one at a time for assembly work thereon, and houses processed lead frames in an exit magazine. Conveyances between the magazines are, however, conducted manually. Accordingly, there may be produced some undesirable possibilities of errors caused by such human participation.
Conventionally, there have been devised many systems each for consistently effecting some processes required for semiconductor manufacture such as a die bonding process, a wire bonding process, and a resin molding process. Employing such an automated system, a complete semiconductor device can be obtained from the outlet thereof only by incorporating lead frames from the inlet thereof. Such systems, however, suffer from the following drawbacks:
(1) Drawing out any magazine in the midst of processing, from the system for quality control, the magazine is separated away from an original lot, resulting in cumbersome difficulties in performing quality control of lots. Namely, to return the drawn magazine to the original lot it is necessary to stop processing for the parental lot and to await the completion of a quality control process, or to manually return the magazine to the original lot.
(2) Successive performance of respective processes in series causes overall throughput to be limited by a latest process, thereby unbalancing those processes.
(3) Since the system is consistently operated, any trouble produced at any one portion thereof requires the entire system to be stopped for its repair.
Different from repairs for individual devices, the repair described above is very complicated and cumbersome.